


haze

by orphan_account



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Gotham City Police Department, Living Together, Resurrected Jason Todd, drug mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 18:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3539048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Has she become just as addictive as the nicotine?</p>
            </blockquote>





	haze

At 11, a coughing fit flung him out of his sleep. Just like that, any last chance of solace disappeared. It would have been better – _much_ better – had he slept soundly.

 

He sank against his pillow, closing his eyes and cursing his luck. His mouth was still dry from the night before. Lips were chapped too. A raw itching rose from the back of his throat, as if he were hungry - no, wait. Not _hungry_. Not quite.

 

He muttered another curse, this one a bit naughtier.

 

Pause.

 

Quick breaths. Right? He’d practiced this.

 

One, two, three. One, two, three. _Come on, Jason, you're fine._

Yeah.

 

Yeah, okay.

 

All the breathing exercises were crap.

 

He needed one.

 

Throwing back the sheets, his feet hit the freezing wooden floors. It was winter, dead winter in Gotham, and everything was inescapably cold. Didn't matter how much insulated material he wrapped around his body - that frost could enter his bloodstream like a bullet.

 

He moved through the room soundlessly, past his glowing laptop on the corner desk, past the scribbled notes on a legal pad - _Crime rate down from 2013,_ the words read, _but arsons nearly doubled in the last year_.

 

"Not a coincidence," he muttered to himself, more asleep than awake. This was the sort of thing that happened when a man spent his days analyzing crime statistics, wondering why dirtbags didn't find a better, cleaner city to infect. The numbers danced around in his brain, dreaming or waking.

 

And in the way, way back of his mind? That tiny, awful, un-scratchable itch. _You need one. You’ve lost it, and you need it back._

 

Jason slipped into the kitchen, more alert now - alert enough to be wary of Barbara down in the basement, tinkering with ancient radio equipment. He could hear her humming an old Ramones hit, her voice just a little too soft, just a little too pleasant.

 

It was alarming how quickly he'd gotten used to her.

 

He paid close attention to her singing, whisking through the kitchen on his tip-toes. Checking every cupboard, inside the drawer that stuck, even in the cereal box where he'd once hid $2,000 in cash. He found nothing. Tossing the last can of her favorite beer ( _White Haze_ , it was called) in the trash, he turned to try the living room.

 

Nothing in the couch cushions. Dresser drawers were clear. TV box, zip, blanket bin, nada. She’d even cleaned out the DVD chest.

 

Damn it, she was good. How could she know so much about him already? Had he been _that_ careless? All because she had long red hair and pretty, piercing doe eyes?

 

No, he knew better than that. It was because Babs was smart. Sharp as a knife, photographic memory, keen attention to details. In other words - a genius detective.

 

She knew where he kept every stick and stash of paraphernalia. She'd figured it out, tracked his movements and his habits. It was all gone, even the tiny blue shards he kept in a cookie jar for when cash was running low.

 

In spite of himself, he started grinning. This girl was a firecracker. A straight-up _nightmare_.

 

One last place. Jason moved back to his desk in the bedroom, using the eerie blue glow of his laptop to light his search. He dug through the bottom drawer until he felt a thin envelope under a stack of newspapers. Barb had never seen him open this drawer, because this drawer was reserved for special occasions. Emergency occasions.

 

He lifted the envelope and pulled out a single, thin cigarette. By far the most harmless of his “harmful substance” inventory. A single cigarette wouldn’t do a damn thing.

 

And besides, Jason was already dying. Might as well speed up the process.

 

Barbara had lit a candle on the bedroom coffee table, like a romantic afterthought. She did little things like that now and again, as if she were trying to transform the Feng Shui of Jason’s stiff Gothamite apartment. She’d changed a lot of things around here. Upgraded his whole computer system – he could hack into the Associated Press now, if he really wanted. Not that he needed _more_ legal trouble on his hands.

 

He lunged towards the candle faster than he’d intended, bending forward to stick the cigarette butt in the flame. The white paper burned beautifully, and Jason took a deep, satisfying drag. His first in a month. Bliss.

 

He turned back to the drawer, considered snatching back the whole bundle of Pall Malls. Babs couldn’t control him. It was his decision.

 

Of course, in his preoccupation with the blessed cigarette, he’d forgotten to pay attention to Barbara’s humming. The Ramones were long gone, and the apartment was silent.

 

Peaceful quiet. Just Jay, and the innocent purr of nicotine.

 

“Jason.”

 

A flash of panic. He whirled around, his hand instinctively reaching for the gun at his hip – which, for obvious reasons, wasn’t there. He was wearing boxer shorts and a Metallica t-shirt, not Carhartt’s and a gun belt.

 

“Barbie,” he said, a little breathlessly.

 

“Didn’t think it would be so easy to sneak up on you.” She stood over him in a Yale sweatshirt and leggings, her hair tied up with a black ribbon. Her arms were crossed over her chest.

 

“I was distracted,” he explained. It sounded pathetic, because it was.

 

“Clearly.”

 

“You were downstairs.”

 

“I heard you moving around up here,” she said. “Got curious. Turns out, I was right.”

 

Finally, his charm kicked in. He shrugged, stubbing the cigarette out on an abandoned plate next to his laptop. “Just got up for a smoke,” he said. “Comin’ back to bed?”

 

“I don’t think so.” She was watching him closely, her expression hard to read.

 

He shrugged again. “Gotta sleep sometime, Barbie. That radio disrupter can wait a couple hours, I’d think.”

 

“Don’t lecture me, Jason.”

 

He grinned. He’d provoked her. Oh, good.

 

“By the way, I hope you know I’m three-thousand in the hole because of you,” he said, moving to the couch at the far corner of his bedroom. He slumped down onto the bright red cushions, as casually as he could muster. “That crystal I had around the house? Was gonna sell it tomorrow.”

 

She rolled her eyes. “Why do you talk like you’re one of them?”

 

“Never said I was,” Jason replied. He snuck a glance at the envelope on his desk. Tempting. Always tempting. “But if I’m ever going to figure these criminals out, I have to _act_ like one of them. Plus I appreciate meth-heads. They’re predictable.”

 

“They’re unsustainable,” she said.

 

“So am I. What a coincidence!” he cried, laughing at a joke that wasn’t funny. His laughter quickly turned to coughing, and soon he was bent over at the waist, hacking onto the floor.

 

Barbara tore her eyes away from him, her glance flicking to the notes on his desk. The police department had asked him – _him_ , ha! – to do the work, to go as far into the drug business as need be. The streets were getting too dangerous, they said. As if they’d ever been safe before. Barbara had been helping him for the last two months, after she caught him with an entire barrel of cocaine in the back of his truck. Yes, a _barrel_.

 

“You hate drugs,” she said finally. It wasn’t a question.

 

He smiled. “Yes, almost as much as my mother loved them.”

 

“Why do you do this to yourself?”

 

“What, get involved in the dirty work? Nobody else is gonna do it, Barbie. Least of all goody-goods like you and Police Department Dad.”

 

“That.” Her eyes moved sharply back to him. “Why do you do that?”

 

He lifted an eyebrow, feigning confusion. But, truthfully, he knew he’d crossed the line. It was one thing to insult Barbara. It was another entirely to insult Commissioner Gordon. Jason honestly adored the old man.

 

“You insult people you like,” she said. Her voice had taken a new tone – more involved, less passive. She was still standing in the middle of the room, looking like an out-of-place sculpture. She was lovely, even at midnight, with mascara smudges under her eyes. He swallowed the desire to get up and touch her. “People who like _you_ , Jason. You throw them away like junk mail.”

 

“Good simile,” he teased.

 

“You’re a jerk.”

 

“It’s a gift.”

 

Once again, he found himself drawn towards the cigarettes. His fingers twitched, and he almost lurched for them – it would have been quick and easy to nab them, like pulling off a Band-Aid. But he couldn’t. Not while looking at her, the way her eyebrows lifted and her breath left her body in a soft _whoosh_.

 

Barbara sighed, running a hand through that long, long hair, pulling it out of its ponytail. It settled about her shoulders in tangled waves, as she shook her head at him. “You’re dying, and I’m the only one who knows about it.”

 

“I don’t have a lot of close relatives to mourn over my corpse, in case you haven’t noticed.” He crossed his legs and looked at her pointedly.

 

“Don’t be morbid.”

 

“Hey, morbid is the only thing I’m _good_ at.”

 

Suddenly, her exasperation was gone. It was replaced by something Jason liked to call the “Babs-is-gonna-raise-hell” look. Against his will, he felt a surge of pride, not unlike butterflies in his stomach. Like a high-school crush. She was amazing.

 

She walked slowly towards him. Quietly, angrily, but walking all the same.

 

“One of these days you’re going to learn you’re wrong,” she said, still moving. One foot. In front. Of the other. “You’re going to realize you can’t just toss people out when you get scared of them. You can’t let anyone get close to you, Jay, and it’s pathetic.”

 

He grimaced. He didn’t like where this conversation was headed.

 

“Well, guess what, _honey?_ ” she continued, mocking his confidence. “I’m staying. You think you can rile me up a bit and send me packing. It isn’t that easy. I’m your last bet at surviving through summer.”

 

“Barbara, I—“

 

“Shut up, Jason. So much of you is talk. And you know it.”

 

She was so close to him now. She stood inches in front of where he sat on his favorite spot on his favorite couch. He could see the freckles dotted across her nose, the fringe of purple in her irises. He knew if he lifted that Yale sweatshirt up just a little bit, spread his fingers down the bare skin of her back, he would find a thick white scar. A scar to match his own.

 

Oh, no.

 

Oh God, no.

 

Had she trapped him? This girl, this manipulative mess of a woman, she had crawled into his head. Had she become just as addictive as the nicotine?

 

Barbara crawled into his arms. Her hair fell against his shoulder. This was his last chance. He could reach for the cigarettes, could get up and leave, find another apartment and another genius red-head to keep him alive.

 

But _her_ lips were on his. _Her_ hands were in his hair. He was smelling _her_ lavender perfume and tasting the mint _she’d_ had after dinner. He could push her away (it would be so easy), but his fingers were slipping up and down that scar. That long, white scar down her back. Just as she kissed the scar on his cheek.

 

The cigarettes were forgotten.

 

Only one lay smoldering in its dish, a thin trail of smoke rising from its stem. It burned like incense, looping upward, curling, twisting. And then, in a translucent white haze … it was gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Someone come join me at the Jaybabs party. Please. I'm lonely. I promise you they're great.  
> Hope you enjoyed the fic - let me know in the comments!


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